If we...can see the issues of our day—the poverty, the racism, war and injustice—and if we can use the skills and resources that we get from our training at school or on the job, and if we can really be open to being equipped by the Spirit of God, then we will be used. We must lie on our beds at night and wrestle with how we can individually and collectively bring our faith from talk to power, how we can bring our faith and works to bear on the real issues of human need. I believe that right now we are facing a most difficult time in history. We are discovering that old strategies have failed and that the new ones, or rediscovered ones, will not let us hold onto our old lifestyles.

I had wondered what Nicholas was doing behind the closed door of his study at an early morning hour. Now I knew. He was not just reading and praying. He was following a discipline which focused him and made it possible for him to realize his full potential. He was lining up his center with the integrating principle at work in the universe, the principle which was ultimately stronger than the drive to fragment. He was tapping into the power of light which would allow him to live dynamically, surfing the chaos, splitting the darkness, serving the creator by serving others again and again.

The Farmer's Pride

Some folks transplant rice for wages,
but I have other reasons.
I watch the sky, the earth, the clouds,
observe the rain, the nights, the days,
keep track, stand guard till my legs
are stone, till the stone melts,
till the sky is clear and the sea calm.
Then I feel at peace.

Work comes from the depth of our silence connected to the silent suffering, the silent needs, and the silent joy of others.

To learn to meet our needs without continuous violence against one another and our only world would require an immense intellectual and practical effort, requiring the help of every human being perhaps to the end of human time. This would be work worthy of the name "human." It would be fascinating and lovely.

Every one of us has a "good work" to do in life, which accomplishes something needed in the world while completing something in us. When it is finished a new work emerges which will help us to make green a desert place, as well as to scale another mountain in ourselves. The work we do in the world, when it is a true vocation, always corresponds in some mysterious way to the work that goes on within us.

The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering.

I used to think that the goal of life is to do equally well in the spheres of work and love. Now I know there is only one sphere. What matters is the way I treat everyone I encounter in the course of my days: my wife, my child, a friend, a colleague, a secretary, a textbook salesperson, a complaining student. What's important is to treat each one with courtesy, with respect...with love...We're all connected in a web of love.